Router architectures are more flexible than ever before. For instance, it is possible to configure a router to treat packets based on flexible rules without being strictly limited to address information. Yet, by doing so, a wrongly configured system could, for instance, allow packets to go through while they should be dropped, drop packets that should go through or wrongly routed packets. Even with conventional routing architectures, it is already difficult to diagnose what caused a problem given the range of potential errors. This is even more relevant given the added flexibility of newer architectures.
The present invention aims at both conventional and flexible router architectures.